Creating a Sankalpa in Trauma Work

In trauma recovery, we are often asked to identify goals, track symptoms, and measure “progress” in ways that feel clinical, detached, and linear. But trauma is rarely linear. It is cyclical. It lives in the body like a tide—it retreats, it returns, it floods, it recedes.

And so I have come to believe that productivity metrics cannot guide healing. It must be rooted in something more profound. Something cellular. Something sacred.

But we must reclaim it from wellness industry slogans. Because in a trauma-informed context, Sankalpa is not a self-improvement goal. It is a soul reclamation. It is a vow and commitment we make to support our highest truth.

That is where Sankalpa lives.

In my journey, my subconscious mind led me to a Sankalpa at the age of 16, and my devotion to it has been a slow and steady evolution towards psychosynthesis. I have intuitively guided others in trauma work to identify their sankalpa and pathway towards posttraumatic growth.

What Sankalpa Is—And What It Is Not

Sankalpa (सं‍कल्प) is a Sanskrit word meaning an intention formed by the heart and mind—a sacred vow to remember one’s essential nature and live in alignment with it. It is not a resolution to fix what is broken, but a vow to return to what is already whole inside you.

In Western terms, it’s often misrepresented as a “positive affirmation.” But affirmations can feel brittle when spoken by a nervous system in collapse. “I am safe” may sound like a lie to a survivor whose body still registers the world as dangerous. “I am lovable” may feel unreachable for someone abandoned as a child.

This is why Sankalpa must be trauma-informed. It must emerge from a place of compassionate attunement, not spiritual bypassing.

The Problem With Goal-Setting in Trauma Recovery

In conventional psychology, we often ask survivors to set “SMART goals”: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound. But what is realistic to someone who has never been allowed to dream? What is measurable when the healing is invisible?

Survivors of trauma—especially complex, racialized, intergenerational trauma—have been shaped by systems that deny them safety, autonomy, and identity. Their very capacity to desire has often been shut down.

In these cases, a Sankalpa is not a to-do list item. It is a sacred remembering.

How a Trauma-Informed Sankalpa Emerges

Creating a Sankalpa in the context of trauma work requires gentleness, patience, and attuned facilitation. It must honor the somatic, ancestral, and spiritual layers of the self that trauma sought to sever.

Step 1: Ground the body first.

Before inviting intention, the nervous system must feel anchored. Grounding techniques like breathwork, bilateral tapping, or Yoga Nidra can gently create internal spaciousness. The Sankalpa does not enter the mind first—it whispers through the body.

“I will not ask your mind to speak a vow your bones do not yet believe.”

Step 2: Name what you’re ready to remember.

A trauma-informed Sankalpa is often not about doing, but being. It might sound like:

• “I remember I am not what happened to me.”
• “I am allowed to take up space.”
• “Even my silence is sacred.”
• “My worth is not conditional.”
• “My ancestors walked me here—I am not alone.”

This is not performance. This is invocation.

Step 3: Speak it into a ritualized space.

Trauma can sever our relationship with the sacred. Reclaiming Sankalpa through ritual—lighting a candle, writing it with plant ink, placing it beneath a pillow—helps reweave safety, sensory grounding, and continuity.

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Why Sankalpa Is Restorative for Marginalized Communities

For BIPOC, queer, disabled, immigrant, and criminalized communities, healing has often been policed, delayed, or pathologized. A trauma-informed Sankalpa allows for healing on our own terms, rooted in ancestral wisdom and radical self-recognition.

For the formerly incarcerated: “I am more than their story about me.”

For the refugee: “My belonging does not require permission.”

For the burned-out healer: “I am allowed to rest without guilt.”

It is also collective. A Sankalpa may begin as personal but often echoes through the generations. It becomes part of the re-mythologizing of the self.

A Note for Clinicians and Guides

If you are a therapist, breathwork facilitator, or spiritual guide, please approach Sankalpa not as a technique but as a sacred trust.

• Invite, don’t impose.
• Allow silence.
• Watch for trauma responses—freeze, appeasement, or fawning may distort self-authorship.
• Co-regulate.
• Reflect back the power you hear in your client’s words.

And most importantly: Never rush the vow. It is not something to declare. It is something to remember.

My Sankalpa as a Forensic Trauma Expert

As someone who writes clemency letters, asylum evaluations, and trauma reports for people the world has tried to discard, my Sankalpa changes as I do. But this one stays with me:

“I speak what others were punished for saying.”

“Even the way I bear witness is an act of repair.”

Each time I write a report, testify in court, or sit with a story so heavy it hurts to breathe—I hold my Sankalpa like prayer beads between my ribs.

A Collective Sankalpa for Our Time

For 2025, when so much remains uncertain, I offer this communal Sankalpa:

“We remember we are not alone in the wound, nor alone in the healing. We vow to stay soft enough to feel and strong enough to speak. Our healing is not a secret—it is a spell.”

Final blessing:

“Let this be the year you do not chase transformation like a finish line. Let this be the year you return to the vow you made before the world taught you to forget your name.”